Friday, June 26, 2009

Probably you're aware of the outcry that the WaPo provoked by firing him -- he is (now was) one of the few actual liberals on the WaPo opinion pages, he is by all accounts a fine reporter, he was unflinching in his critical view of the Bush White House and had continued to hold the same skeptical attitude as soon as Obama took office, etc. If you're not familiar with how this all broke down, last week's post from Wonkette is a good introduction, and Glenn Greenwald's screed is also recommended.

Froomkin's final post has links to where else you might find him on the Web, both for archives and stuff to come after he gets back from vacation. Here are two worth keeping an eye on: WhitehouseWatch.com and NeimanWatchdog.org.

Best wishes to Dan, and a big fat old raspherry to Fred Hiatt.

[Added] Here are some things that I bookmarked when news of Froomkin's firing first broke:

A comment left by hellslittlestangel, under Joe Klein's post about the neocons on the WaPo op-ed page (via):

With the sacking of Dan Froomkin, I've given up on even looking at the Post. For a long time, I mostly read it to make fun of their OpEd clowns, but they've just gotten too ugly and vicious to laugh at anymore. It's like reading a spell-checked Free Republic.

That’s why the firing of Dan Froomkin now makes a perverse sort of sense. As long as the right was in power, he was in effect the Post’s designated moonbat, someone who attracted readers but didn’t threaten the self-esteem of the self-perceived serious people at the paper. But now he looks like someone who was right when the serious people were wrong — and that means he has to go.